Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
I wish to thank the committee for inviting me.
CPP Investments is the professional investment management organization that invests the Canada pension plan funds not currently needed to pay current benefits. Our purpose is to help provide a foundation upon which more than 21 million Canadians can achieve lifetime financial security.
Our assets are segregated from government funds and managed exclusively to pay these benefits. The organization’s framework was carefully crafted to ensure we could operate without political interference.
When Canadian governments decided that a national pension fund was needed to address poverty among seniors, consent of the provinces was required. Maintaining provincial authority is deeply enshrined in the Canada pension plan, arguably the best example of co-operative federalism in Canada.
Joint stewardship between federal and provincial governments applies to how we operate. We are focused solely on fulfilling our legislative objectives in the best interests of contributors and beneficiaries. Pursuing complex investment opportunities requires significant and multi-faceted due diligence. To provide you a sense of scale, over the last five years we have carried out more than 300 investment transactions, each of which was valued at over $300 million.
Disclosing commercially sensitive material would severely undermine our ability to achieve our mission. Our success in capital markets depends on our ability to work with partners, confidentially shielded from politics and competitors. Most critically, political demands superseding our commercial activities would erode the fund's position in the most important investment markets in the world.
For example, the U.S. grants special, trusted status to CPP Investments because we are independent and behave independently. Anything that would compromise our respected commercial position would hinder our ability to access and compete in global markets. That's contrary to the best interests of Canadians relying on the CPP for their retirement.
I wish to thank the committee for this opportunity.
I will be pleased to answer your questions.